CNN management has launched an internal investigation into how a giant black 'X' mark appeared over Vice President Dick Cheney's face -- as he delivered a speech from Washington on Monday!

"We are taking this matter very, very seriously, and I can assure you no one at this network would ever deliberately place an 'X' over the vice president's face," a top CNN source, who asked not to be named at this time, said from New York.

A well-placed CNN insider claims a control room staffer "laughed" when the image appeared shortly after 11 am.

A careful review of the tape now shows a white colored 'X' was also transposed over Cheney's face during the speech, it appeared for less than 1/15 of a second, creating a startling flash effect.

CNN spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg emails: "We concluded this was a technological malfunction not an issue of operator error. A portion of the switcher experienced a momentary glitch. We obviously regret that it happened and are working on the equipment to ensure it is not repeated."

A rival network news director asks: "When has an 'X' ever aired on CNN before? Who had the graphic sitting in the key signal? Who generated the 'X'?"

The vice president himself is said to have brushed off the incident, a White House source said early Tuesday morning.

OK if you look into raster scan and video lock equipment that a big company like that has you know that there is NO WAY that a perfect "X" would show up due to a "momentary glitch" (yeah, right!) more like a momentary brain fart.
offset blank screens and quick flashed images are the stock in trade of TV, so I hope it just means that the press is finally standing up and telling the PerHetch'a that the news is too important to stifle for someone to save face. HA! save face, get it?? :-D :-D :lol: :-)